


Dude, WTF, I'm a merman!!?

by mermanfromdownunder



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gay, Gay Male Character, Homosexuality, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Mermen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Non-Consensual, Secret Identity, Secrets, Short, Transform, Transformation, merman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 15:36:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14023344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermanfromdownunder/pseuds/mermanfromdownunder
Summary: James learns his partner Alex is actually a merman. Alex then turns James into a merman against his will.-Short Story commissioned by an Instagram user-





	1. Chapter 1

"So? You decided yet?" James asked inquisitively, looking across at his partner.

Alex closed his menu and turned to the waitress. "I think I'll have the fish." He said confidently. The waitress scribbled his order down and collected the menu from his hand. 

"You always have the fish." James placed a hand on his short stubble like beard. "Everywhere we go, it's like my Dad and steak sandwiches. You need to branch out a little."

"What can I say, I like fish." Alex rebutted. 

The restaurant was one of the fanciest in town, a classy place with a koi pond just as you came in the entrance. It was the place that Alex had taken James to on their first date, but the pair hadn't been in at least a year and a half. 

"They do a mean spaghetti here. Or you could have gotten the walnut salad, it sounded nice. Would you like to try some of my steak when it comes?"

"James, this is meant to be our belated third anniversary dinner. Can you at least try to enjoy yourself and stop worrying about my food choice? I'm fine with having the fish, I love fish. Maybe if you tried some, you'd want it too."

He took a sip from his wine glass. "I'm sorry. I'm just a bit frustrated that's all. We rarely get to spend much time together. And you are going again in just a few days, you've only just got back."

"I know dude. But work is work. I can't delay the pacific merger any longer, it's taken months to settle the date. After next week, I'll be home a lot more, I promise."

The waitress come back with the plates of food, placing them down in front of each of the two men. 

"I'll hold you to that promise."

The men shared a lovingly look and got stuck into their meals. 

"Sure you don't want to try the steak?" James asked softly. 

"I'm sure." Alex repeated and took a sip of his mineral water.

 

___________

After the meal, the men took an Uber home. James knew he was going to get a little tipsy and didn't drive his car there and Alex doesn't have a driver's licence. 

The slightly intoxicated man unlocked the door to their small apartment and stumbled in, Alex walked in after and closed the door, locking it behind him. 

"Come on, bed time for you. Into the shower you go." Alex said like a mother talking to her half asleep child that had fallen asleep watching TV. 

"You should come with me."

Alex helped guide his inebriated partner to the bathroom with a gentle push from behind. 

"To the shower?"

"Yesss"

"I can't"

"Whhhy not?"

"Urhh, it's late. And you are smashed."

"Come on. We have never showered together. I need some help washing myself. I'm too drunk."

"Sorry James. Maybe next week."

"You prommmise??"

"Sure." With another shove, Alex pushed the other man into the bathroom further and closed the door on him. Alex looked somewhat distressed, but the emotion soon faded. 

Once James was out of the shower, he strode into their bedroom naked and fell down onto the bed. He was much more sober but the sobriety had made him infinity more tired and instantly he fell asleep atop the soft inviting bed. 

Alex took this as his opportunity. With a small kiss on his partners head, he left the room and ran to the bathroom. He flicked on the taps and emptied a box of salt from the cupboard into the tub. He closed the door and turned off the light, the room was still illuminated through the skylight which let it a portion of moonlight. After stripping off his clothes, he turned off the tap, took a deep breath and slid into the bathtub.


	2. Chapter 2

The water flowed over Alex's bare legs and a constricting feeling followed. As his skin transitioned to iridescent scales half the size of a fingernail, relief greeted the man. His transformation completed moments later with a large fluke growing from where his feet were. The man, now a mer-man had a rainbow scaled tail that started where he would have kept a belt and replaced his legs. His human male genitalia were swapped with the equivalent merman model, which was very much the same but hidden under a small mound of scaled flesh. 

Alex felt astoundingly blissful as he usually did each night after he got the opportunity to transform after a long day on his feet. But tonight was special, usually he only had a few minutes in the tub with the shower spraying on him. But tonight he could take a long bath and not be bothered by his partner or work or-

There was a thud on the door just before it opened. The light switched on like a flashbang, almost blinding the merman. 

"I just came in to clean my teeth." The sleepy man said stumbling in like a zombie. James approached the sink and prepared his toothbrush. He started brushing before turning around to lean his bottom on the bench. The bushing came to a slow halt as James saw what layed in the tub. 

With an astonished look, the man rubbed his eyes with his free hand. The merman couldn't do anything but lay there in the cold and salty water sheepishly. 

"Please tell me I'm dreaming." James said, before spitting out his mouthful of suds. 

"You aren't dreaming James. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I was working up to-" The merman started.

"You're a, Mer, mer-man." 

"Yes. Please don't be mad."

"I'm not mad. I'm just, just a bit. I don't know."

"It's okay, have some time to process this."

James knelt besides the tub, leaning closer to the half fish, half man in the water. 

"Is this why you refuse to shower with me. Do you get like this when you are wet?"

"Yes, anything over a little spill on my legs and my bottom half goes like this." James hand moved up to touch the scales around where they transitioned to skin. "It's okay you can touch it."

"Okay..." With a gentle hand, James ran his fingers over the multicoloured scales, shifting the orientation of them which changed the way light reflected of them. He moved his hand to the left and ran over the merman genital region. Alex winced with pleasurable pain before snatching the hand away. 

"It's just really sensitive. Sorry." The merman explained. "Can we talk about this in the morning? I bet you are really tired. And have loads of questions for me."

"You bet your fish butt I do." James said as he stood up. "See you in bed." He finished, leaving the merman to stew in the bath tub, thinking over if he made the right decision not to tell his partner until now.


	3. Chapter 3

Alex yawned and stretched, opening his eyes to the new day. His partner was layed upright in bed with a pillow between him and the headboard, staring at his illuminated phone screen. James looked like he hadn't gotten much sleep if any. 

"Morning." The already awake man said blankly. His partner rolled over at the sound of his greeting. 

"Hey. Morning." The secret merman replied. "Did you get any sleep?"

"A little. Maybe an hour or two." Alex bit his lip and sat up in bed. James, turned and placed the phone down on the sheets. 

The merman spoke with a soft tone. "I'm really sorry. I was going to tell you eventually, I promise. I love you, and I just wanted it to be the right time, you know." His partner nodded, but what still looking down. "Eventually, I was going to take you to meet my parents." 

"But, you said you lived in foster care?"

"I did. When merfolk are young, their birth parents arrange for them to be placed in foster care or up for adoption on land, to learn the human ways of doing everything. The main reason though is to find a mate, and bring them into the pod. Merfolk reproduction, ah, it's pretty complicated. I still see my folks from time to time. Some decide never to come back to the ocean, like my younger sister."

The air grew stagnant before James continued his questions.

"I've been looking at everything this morning. Mermaids, Mermen, all over the internet but couldn't find anything other than folk tales and pop culture stuff."

"We like to stay under the radar. The surge in merfolk pop culture was an attempt to gradually introduce the idea of actual Mermaids and Mermen to society."

"And the pacific merger, it's not a human thing is it."

Alex took a long deep breath, wishing he could just share his thoughts to his partner instead of explaining. "It's between three merfolk clans, that reside in the pacific ocean. Once we get the clans together, we are going to try to approach humanity as who we are."

"I see." James confirmed, placing his hands on his tired face. 

Alex leaned over closer to his mate. "I wanted to show you all of it, in person."

"How? Do they want a human around?"

"How do you think the merfolk that come to land get their partners back?"

James thought for a moment, his sleep deprived brain ticking over like an old computer. 

"No.. nooo. No. No. You are not turning me into one of you." The man said defensively scrambling out of bed. 

Alex was quick to respond. "James, my people have been doing this for centuries. It's painless and you can always come back to land."

"No. I refuse. I don't want to be a merfreak."

"Then I can't make you."

"Okay then. Okay...." James muttered, and walked out to the bathroom. 

Alex jumped out of bed and retrieved a vial from his bedside table then followed his partner into the bathroom. James disrobed and stepped into the shower and before he could turn on the water, the already naked Alex stepped in with him. 

"You you are here to have make up sex in the shower, I don't think that's going to go very well with your..." James started, reaching for the tap.

Before he could finish, the merman impacted his partner with 3 fingers the back of his neck, causing James to slump over against the wall, aided by his partner. 

Alex lowered the other man all the way onto the bathtub and turned on the water, before pinching the unconscious man's nose and pouring the sticky, rotten smelling dark green paste from the small vial into his mouth, causing James to swallow the vile substance.


	4. Chapter 4

James awoke to a soft trickle of water falling out of the bathtub tap. As his eyes flicked open, he saw his partner leaning over him, adjusting the flow. The tub was over half full of warm water and James felt slightly buoyant. Alex withdrew from the tap and spotted James' return to consciousness. Still perched over the edge of the tub, he filled most of James' vision. 

"Hey sleepy head." Alex remarked casually. 

James frowned, perturbed by something he didn't quite fully remember. "Hey.... What's going on?"

"Please, try not to flip out."

"Alex...."

The man scooted back and knelt on the tiled flooring, revealing the truth to his partner. 

 

James was beyond lost for words. His mouth agape, mind exploding, heart pounding as he couldn't comprehend the current situation.

"What did you do to me!!!" He screamed, lifting his arms up to try to escape the horror that sat at the end of the tub. But he was met with resistance. 

James' legs felt like numb lumps of flesh, visibly they looked almost no different other. A lightly coloured mucus oozed around them, like an egg white around a yolk. 

"I'm sorry, I thought you would react this way, but I hoped you wouldn't." Alex said, shifting his gaze. 

James was bound at both wrists by a plastic cable that was linked underneath his lower back. 

"This is fucking ridiculous! Untie me NOW!"

"I can't until the process is complete."

"No, no, no. You need to stop whatever shit you are doing to me. I don't want to be one of you. I refused and you said you couldn't make me!"

"I lied. You didn't give me much choice."

A moment went by before James hatched a plan inside his head. 

"HELP! HELP ME!" James bellowed at the top of his lungs. The scream echoing around the small room but Alex was quick to place his hand over his mouth to silence the man. With his other hand, Alex pushed his partner back against the side of the tub and leaned in again. 

 

Their faces were inches apart now. "Please don't make this any harder than it has to be. If you want to reverse the process, it has to be completed first and we have to go and get another vial. I'm, I'm sorry and I love you dearly. I hope you don't hate me for doing this...." Alex said with pain in his voice, before removing his hand and kissing his new merman in a passionate embrace.


	5. Chapter 5

It was now almost noon. James has been in the bath for over three hours and untied for one of those hours. He had managed to fall asleep, as Alex suspected, who still sat beside the tub. Turing a human into a merperson is a biologically complex and strenuous task, like limb regeneration in lizards. It uses the stored fat in the body, turning it into energy to fuel the massive transformation. And every subsequent time a person transforms either way, it pulls from those fat stores again. This was Alex's secret to being able to eat whatever he wanted while remaining slender, a secret James was desperate to know along with how he gets so toned without working out; a side effect from all the swimming. 

Alex checked the time on his phone and inspected his partner's legs, which had now formed into one solid limb. Premature scales had started to spread down his newly formed tail, shining under the water and mucus membrane. His feet were now flattened, with his toes extended outwards and a flap of skin strung between each of them. 

"Not long now." Alex muttered to himself in relief, moving his hand up to stroke his partner's resting face. James moaned but didn't stir from his exhaust induced slumber. 

The merman recounted his childhood fondly. While still very young, merpeople undergo the same transformation that James was experiencing, although in reverse. Sometimes still an infant just out of the womb, others prepubescent children, are fed fatty and sugary sealife before they are then turned into essentially a human. They wouldn't show signs of their undersea heritage until they finished puberty. Then, they could grow legs whenever they are dry and away from the water's touch, but could turn back into merfolk in a matter of minutes just by submerging their lower half in water. Alex and his younger sister Thea had been transformed together when he was just 4 years old, she just a newborn, then delivered to a loving couple on land. Thea hadn't stayed long after having the news broken to her when it was the right time and had only visited her real parents underwater once, before leaving that part of her life behind for good along with Alex and his foster family.

Only an hour later and James was looking like a fully fledged merman. The scales were opaque white and refracted the bathroom light into a spectrum of colour, slightly different to Alex. His fluke was now grown to full length, with his toes merged and flattened into the webbing. His male parts were hiding under a scaled flap and looked similar but still different to that had been there before. Scales ran all the way up to the belt line, fading out into the smooth skin. Gill slits along his hips opened and closed in time with his soft chest rising and falling, sucking in water for some aided respiration before blowing it back out. 

Alex checked his watch again before getting up to pull the bath tubs plug out. The water and mucus residue gurgled down the pipe, still not rising the sleeping half man, half fish in the tub. Alex grabbed the flexible shower head, then switched on the cold water. He washed the remaining mucus off James scales and skin, and playfully sprayed him right in the face. Causing a watery screech to come out of James' mouth. "Whhaaaat the fuck!?"

"Sorry, couldn't help it, you looked so cute asleep." The man continue to wash the new merman. "Plus you weren't waking up."

It took a second to James to remember his predicament, but he seemed calmer about it, now that he was viewing the finished product: a beautiful iridescent tail sprawling out from his own body. 

"You still aren't forgiven. I'm very, very angry at you." James said, running a hand over the tail. 

"I don't blame you." Alex replied turning off the water. 

The lack of flowing water caused James to gasp for air, like someone had suddenly put him on top of a mountain. Alex acknowledged his partners lack of air by turning the bath tap back on, water flowed around to his gills again in a short second stopping his breathlessness. 

"That's something you'll have to get used to." Alex said with a sly smile. 

"I'm sure you will help me." James wheezed. 

"Hungry?"

"Starving."


	6. Chapter 6

Shortly after he was mostly dry, the tail that had once occupied James' lower half rescinded into two limbs. Scale became skin and digits replaced the thin fluke at his feet. Alex hauled his partner from the tub and embraced his naked and damp form for a long moment. James put the towel around his waist and tucked the end in to hold it there.

After almost eating his body weight in food as he hadn't eaten since the night before, James felt better about his situation. Interrogating Alex with a million questions in between mouthfuls probably helped as well.

"So, you planned to leave to go back to the ocean tomorrow." James asked inquisitively as he wiped his hands on a napkin.

"Yes." Alex replied.

"Did you, would you want me to join...."

Before James could finish, Alex cut him off. "Of course I would." James smiled with enthusiasm in reply. "However, I think you will get used to you new form a bit first."

"Start in the shallow end?" James said with a coy smile.

"Exactly. How do you feel about going for a swim tonight?" Alex proposed.

 

\-----------

 

The combination of street lights and the moon's illumination guided their way down to the rocky beach near their apartment. Alex began to disrobe instinctively once they felt the rocks turn to sand under their feet. James followed suit, nervously taking of his clothes too while looking cautiously around for anyone who might be in view.

"Relax dude. Nobody comes down here after 8." Alex informed him, which seemed to calm his nerves.

Soon both men were naked and had stashed their clothes and towels behind one of the the larger rocks further up the beach out of reach of the tide. Alex grabbed James' hand, both men only illuminated by the light of the moon and the reflection off the rolling waves as they approached.

"We'll take this slow. As slow as you need." Alex said, tugging his partner along.

The men began to stride towards the water as waves continued to wash in. Soon their feet were engulfed by water. Alex quickened his pace and James began to feel a sharp constricting sensation in his legs causing him to wince. Soon Alex's legs conjoined stoping him from walking out any further, followed shortly by James.

 

With a splash, James face planted unexpectedly into the water as a wave rolled over him. Feeling the urge to breath, he found he could partially through his newly formed gills. He looked over at his partner who still held his hand. The pair swam for hours up and down the beach and even out to the cove, Alex passing on his knowledge periodically as they came up for air. James was enamored with his new form and abilities, and even felt a newfound lust for his partner.

 

James could tell it was late, the cold ocean salt water had dried his unprepared skin and swimming constantly for the past few hours had warn him out. With that, the pair called it a night and swam back to the beach, dragging themselves out of the waves and up onto the sandy land.

 

James was a bit slower than the practiced merman, but eventually hauled himself up beside Alex.

"There's still something you haven't shown me." James said sounding out of breath.

A puzzled Alex looked over to him. "Yeah, what's that?"

James wriggled closer, dragging his large tail across the sand before reaching a hand over his bottom and pulling the other merman closer, locking their lips in a kiss.

"Oh. I see." Alex let out as their lips parted briefly.

\--------------

The dawn sun bathed the two naked men and the rest of the beach in orange light. James was awake to see it, while Alex was still asleep. With a sharp nudge, the other man was awake.

"Thank you Alex." James whispered.

"No, thank you. I'm very happy you are finally okay with all this. It means the world to me that I can share this with you." Alex replied, raising himself off the sand.

"We should probably be getting back before the morning exercise groups see us." James said, lifting himself off the ground and dusting the sand from his legs and bottom.

"Agreed, that might be a bit awkward." Alex acknowledged.

\------------------

 

Once they had a large breakfast back at their apartment. James took some time to sort out some things he wanted to take care of before he and Alex went away for the week.

 

It wasn't long before the pair were ready to embark on their journey. After a short drive up the coast, they stopped at a small deserted beach and undressed, stashing their clothes in the car and the key hidden in the wheel well. Alex had unwrapped some jewelry to wear from a small towel, a necklace made of shells tied together with an organic string and some tarnished metal bracers. After affixing them to himself he pulled out a plain silver and black ring, and presented it to James.

James looked at the naked man before him, down on one knee, before embracing him in a long and tight hug before finishing with a quick kiss.  
And as the afternoon sun danced across the water, the two men, now mermen sank into the deep and swam away.

 

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed please leave a comment and a kudos. I'm taking commissions for stories, so if you have an idea for a story you would like me to write just get in touch. This story will be including in an upcoming collection I'm putting together with some other upcoming works in the same vain, so look out for that Anthology when it comes out.


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